Bruce Munro Essay

1063 Words5 Pages
Bruce Munro’s Light Installations

Bruce Munro is a British installation artist. Installation art is three-dimensional and is mostly site-specific. They are intended to change space perception. Bruce Munro has taken installation art to new heights. He does large-scale installations that usually encompass entire parks to create entire exhibitions. His primary medium is light. He uses light to completely transform an area. His exhibitions are very unique. Typically in an exhibition, one would go to a shop, museum, or some other location, and simply admire and study the work. In Munro’s exhibitions, attendees are placed in a completely immersive world. There are lights completely surrounding them. Most of Munro’s inspiration is found in books and other works of art. He uses ideas or scenes in books to bring the words to life through his installations. He also has attributed some of his inspiration to paintings.
Not only are Munro’s works immersive, they are typically very environment friendly. He often uses recyclable material. This was evident in his CD Sea installation in Wiltshire, UK and his Light exhibition in Longwood Gardens, PA, which was his debut in the United States. In CD Sea, Munro used over 600,000 recycled compact discs collected from all over the world to create a “sea of CDs”. This “sea” outlined a path that went throughout the park. When the light reflected off of the discs, it created a shimmering effect, similar to that of the sunlight hitting the ocean’s surface. Munro got this inspiration while spending time on the beach in Australia (Munro).

In his Light exhibition in Longwood Gardens, Munro created an installation named Water Towers. Munro claims his inspiration was from a book called The Gifts of Unknown Things by Lyall Watson. In that book there is a girl who has the gift of seeing sounds in color. Watson

More about Bruce Munro Essay

Open Document